The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1887-10-29

Extract from the Speech OF InOn1uS weeks, ESQ.
in Baltimore, October 81
| am not going to comment on the methods
by which the B. and o. Telegraph was ruined
and sold out; | suppose there are few people
who know the true inwardness of that trans.
action, and fewer still who would care to
divulge it.
But we all know the fact of its dissolution
as AN independent line. We all know that it
has passed into the control of the Western
Union Company-that is to say, of Jay Gould.
We stand confronted by the fact that this
arch conspirator against Democratic govern
ment can now control the markets and the
politics of these United States by reason of
his control of the great Telegraph service of
this country; that be or his agents can read
every political message in any contest coming
from every county where his wires stretch;
that he or his agents will read every return
of this coming election in Maryland, and that
so far he holds in his hands the political
destiny of this great people.
1t is idle to say that he and his Republican
associates will not dare to use this power to
thwart the will of the popular majority. He
has acquired this power for the purpose of
using it.
The man who in 1869 engineered the gold
corner, who attempted to ''hx'i the govern
ment, who drove the price of gold from 1853
on the 18th of September to 1409 on the 22d,
and on BLACK Friday to 1921; who in that
awful panic was Indifferent alike to the fate of
his friends as to that of his foes; the man who
by his agents, without law and in open viola
ton of New York's Criminal Code, cut down
the wires of competing company, and who,
except for his wealth, would have stood in
the dock as any other robber or anarchist;
the man who to crafty his personal pride and
will could see thousands of mechanics and
workmen standing idle along his Western
lines, their families hungry and cold, the
public peace maintained by the military
power and the entire commerce OF the Amer
lean Republic stagnated; the man who stands
to- day charged under criminal proceeding
of the grand larceny of over So, 600, 900 of
railroad securities, and who leans back on his
easy lounge and tells the newspaper press of
the coantry that the effort to prosecute him
affords him amusement-that man would do.
and dare any outrage and any crime that
would satisfy his lust for gold and his ambi,.
ton for political power
OF all the men whoever commended with hin,
politically, Arthur P. German, of Maryland.
has been alone successful.
In spite of his banquet of stock jobbers,
gamblers and Republican political heelers,
which fzzled out III rum, Romanism and
Rebellion" in spite of his endeavor TO hold
back the election returns which declared
Grover Cleveland elected to the end that he
might ''claim everything and count in
Blaine and steal again the Presidency of the
United States; in spite of every trick and
continuance, the cool and determined front OF
Maryland's Democratic lender compelled his
surrender, and from then till now his effort
has been, by the destruction of his opponents
political power in this State, to secure the
control of our State government. and to use
it as lever in 1888 to reinstate the Republi-
can party in National politics.
The shares of Baltimore and Ohio stock
held by this State and CITY are not for sale,
evel though under the present management
they have, for the first time, failed to pay
dividend, and so far enlarged the burden Of
our taxation
There is no opportunity to control this
public stock by purchase, but it can be con-
trolled by political power. Give Jay Gould's
railroad agents here in Baltimore the Mayor
of the city and the Governor of the State and
he will name the directors who will vote the
stock, create the president and officers of the
road, evade Just taxation by defeating con
stitutional amendments, control commerce by
determinations in freights, and. with the road
and telegraph at his command, dominate this
free people and bind them with the bondage
of his monopoly in their domestic, municipal
and State affairs.
The perpetuation of this Democratic Gov
eminent is the safeguard of this peoples
liberties.